Xavier Veilhan

source: lespressesdureel
Catalogue des expositions Light Machines à la Fondation Vasarely, Aix-en-Provence (1er mai – 17 juin 2004) et aux Écuries de Saint-Hugues, Cluny: des milliers d’ampoules électriques disposées en grille sur panneaux, formant une trame analogique reproduisant des images vidéo en basse résolution.
Figure majeure de la scène artistique française, Xavier Veilhan (né en 1963, vit et travaille à Paris) se définit comme un artiste visuel. Son travail, déclinant sculpture, peinture, vidéo, photographie et installation, consiste à ressaisir le réel, notamment dans ses aspects biologiques et techniques, sous des formes archétypales, génériques ou prototypiques qui interrogent les modes de représentation historiques et contemporains.
L’universalisme formel, qui semble renvoyer à l’idéal de l’art classique, se trouve contrebalancé par la singularité des dispositifs de mise en scène des œuvres, des situations et des environnements construits, par la modernité des sujets et par les procédés high-tech utilisés (sculptures d’animaux ou de personnages modélisés avec la technique de captation 3D, dispositifs lumineux des Light Machines…), qui convoquent des images de la société de production industrielle et de consommation dans des univers étranges et équivoques.
Xavier Veilhan a réalisé de nombreuses expositions personnelles, au Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1993), au CCC de Tours (1995), au Consortium de Dijon (1999), au Mamco de Genève (1999-2000), au Magasin de Grenoble (2000), au CCA Kitakyushu (2002), au Centre Pompidou de Paris (2004), au Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg (2005), au Château de Versailles (2009)…
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source: lespressesdureel
Catalogue of the exhibitions Light Machines at Fondation Vasarely, Aix-en-Provence, France (March 1st – June 17th, 2004) and at Écuries de Saint-Hugues, Cluny, France: a thousand electric light-bulbs arranged in a grid on a flat aluminium support form the analoge frame that produces low-resolution video images.
Through his portraits and landscapes, his bestiary and his architectures, Xavier Veilhan (born 1963 in Lyon, lives and works in Paris) pursues a constantly regenerated reflection on the status of representation and the materialization of an idea, using the same space for sculpture, painting and photography. A manufacturer of the visible, he invents works, images, and objects that hesitate between the familiar and the strange. Interested in modernity and using references ranging from classical statuary to Futurism and Op art, Veilhan has been compared to artists such as Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons. For Jean-Pierre Criqui he is “a perfect example of a Pop artist for the 21st century, with an accessible formal vocabulary and referents, while at the same time cultivating a certain air of detachment and reserve in his use of affects, thereby distancing himself from the empathy aroused by direct borrowings from the sphere of commodities and the media.”
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source: veilhan
I never really worked with Xavier on a particular project, or my memory doesn’t serve me right, which is possible; but I feel like I really know him. When I look at his biography, I feel like seeing pass through my own life in parallel, as the first time I discovered his work was in Geneva, at Halle Sud, in 1990 at the “French Kiss” exhibition, which was organized by a man who would become a friend of mine: Eric Troncy.

Another reason why we are close, is the fact that when I was working at bdv publishing house (bureau des vidéos), we decided to create a “documentary” branch about artists. Director Jordan Feldman had filmed Xavier for over 9 months in the heart of the art world, between his studio, the gallery and the museum in the company of all players that are part of this environment. Being myself part of this world, I had often met Xavier, followed by Jordan’s camera, which I thought was fun. In France nobody knows what the artists look like, they are not in the medias, which don’t care about them (at least they did not until very recently). I found stimulating that someone I had known for quite a long time, I think I even remember an exhibition with the Ripoulain brothers in the late 80’s, could suddenly become kind of a star with an exalting destiny. It is a bit like when you hear actors or musicians talking about their universe, their friends, which café they go to, what they think about the world… This time it was Xavier’s turn and I happened to know him.

So at some point, I made the choice to at least edit the film, as I was not part of it. In the world of film edition, when you make a choice like this, it means you are going to watch over and over again different versions of the cuts until you know all the lines almost by heart. People I knew in my sphere of activity became fictional characters and I thought it was great. But what finally struck me more in this “reality” was the calm and composure of the main character, the artist himself. I was becoming a “star” almost in spite of himself. It was as if his circle believed or even desired it more than him.

I specifically remember this scene of anthology in “256 days” when Xavier discusses his project of a public sculpture in Bordeaux in an institutional design white office. He is working out his “Lion” with the head of cultural activities of the city or something like that. This lady with tidy hair, with all the self-importance that bourgeoisie grants to her position, her lips a little twisted and squinting at him in a way both posh and embarrassed but directive at the same time, explains that “Yes, well, you know what I mean, it will not be possible, we would not tolerate it.” The audience, composed of participants and project leaders, stirred, seems not to really understand what the lady is talking about. They finally understand that, in the name of the citizens, she doesn’t want the lion, this virile and powerful animal, to have too big of a ablouheu. Sorry ? A what ? We didn’t get it ! I love this moment when everybody is looking at each other stupefied, without a word. “The organ, it should not be too visible, people wouldn’t like it.” Embarrassed laughter. I’ve always thought this moment crystallized the quite unprofessional relationship that French politicians have with art, constantly trying to instrument it and feeling within their rights to do so. Xavier does not get confused one second, barely laughs, and takes the time to explain to the good lady that, as it happens, his work is based on a schematization of the volumes and therefore there is little chance for the animal to have a big one.

I identically love the simmering conflict in Tours when Xavier is working to build his “Monster”. This old state architect is obviously against, his function keeping him in a two-centuries-old space-time. There, again, Xavier handles the situation without hysterics. Similarly, at the end of the film, we see Xavier is in the office of the curator of Beaubourg, Christine Macel, where he is told bluntly and a bit offhandedly that there is no budget to finalize his exhibition. He takes a deep breath but, as always undaunted, finds a solution. And this is Xavier too, as his sculptures and as the saying goes: he doesn’t change and he’s remained simple.
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source: artsynet
Xavier Veilhan’s sculptural interventions are bold and transfixing, while complementing existing architecture and altering how viewers look at their surroundings. His “Architectones” series pays tribute to Kasimir Malevich’s “Architectons,” three-dimensional models that blend architecture with philosophy. In “Architectones,” Veilhan installed sculptures in celebrated, modernist homes; each work was unique to the setting and placed in dialogue with the building’s architecture. A sixty-foot bust of Le Corbusier was set atop the architect’s Cité Radieuse in Marseille, for example. Through faceted, distorted shapes, Veilhan’s structures capture energy by revealing the movement surrounding them. In 2009, Veilhan’s work was displayed in the Palace of Versailles and its surrounding gardens, juxtaposing traditional architecture against minimalist, futurist-inspired sculpture, with the ultimate goal of enhancing the former.
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source: blogartinternnet

Absolutely love the stunning sculptures of French sculptor, Xavier Veilhan. His work suggest some form of Cubism to me.

Whether he uses digital photography, sculpture, public statuary, video, installations or even the art of the exhibition, Xavier Veilhan builds his work around the same axis: the possibilities of representation. One of the most striking features of his polymorphic practice is that he treats generic objects and shapes of everyday life so that they come out smoothed, without details, and resistant to any psychological insight. Since the 1990s, bestiaries occupy a significant place in this process, and among them, penguins and rhinoceros of unnatural colours, made of painted polyester resin.